Terrorist violence is often condemned for targeting innocents or non-combatants. There
are two objections to this line of argument. First, one may doubt that terrorism is necessarily
directed against innocents or non-combatants. However, I will focus on the second objection,
according to which there may be exceptions from the prohibition against killing the
innocent. In my article I will elaborate whether lethal terrorism against innocents can be justified
in a supreme emergency. Starting from a critique of Michael Walzer’s account of
supreme emergency, I will argue that the supreme emergency exemption justifies the resort
to terrorism against innocents to avert moral disasters such as genocide and ethnic
cleansing, provided that the criteria of last resort, proportionality and public declaration are
satisfied.